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From the juiced-box and the soundtrack: The Game – House of Pain

Ramblings: The A-Team Plays Hard

Final Proof: 3 Shots

You know how you drink with a childhood friend? Not someone you’ve been friends with since you were in kindergarten, but some kid you knew for like one year in fourth grade and didn’t even like so much then and you lost contact when you moved away and completely forgot about him, truth be told, but then you happen to bump into him in some bar and you kinda dread hanging with him ’cause he was pretty dorky when you guys were younger but what the hell, right? You haven’t seen him for a couple decades and it might be fun to reminisce about how you stole his girlfriend and you can always cut out early if he bores you too much. So you’re drinking your first drinks and can you believe it, he actually turns out to be cool. He grew out of his retarded dolt phase and knows how to party and pays for some drinks and keeps you entertained with cool stories about all the crap he’s done since he grew up. i mean, you’re not gonna make him your best man or anything and maybe you’ll still steal his new girlfriend from him but that’s only because she’s hot and if he can get hot babes why not hang out with him a little longer and order another round on you? That’s kinda the way it was with The A-Team.

‘Cause i’m old enough to remember the original A-Team television series and i for sure am old enough to remember i didn’t watch it. i’m pretty sure the reason for that is that it sucked—wait, met me check…yeah, that was definitely it. It sucked.

Miss D and me decided to see this movie because it started right after i finished work and with our movie passes it’s not like we have to pay extra to see this so what the hell. Bottom line, i was pleasantly surprised. There was a lot of crap about the TV series that got up my nose like puke chunks when you barf with your mouth closed: The special effects reeked, for example, and no matter what kind of huge explosion went off or how many guns were firing, no one ever died. Parents must’ve complained about too much violence because a freaking missile could land dead center on a jeep full of bad guys and explode like a super nova while the A-Team fired rocket launchers and other heavy artillery into the wreckage and still the last shot you’d see were the bad guys struggling to their feet in a daze, and shaking off the armageddon before putting their hands up in surrender. God that chaffed my ass more than splinters in a barstool.

Like i was saying, though, the movie was tons better. Bad guys actually died and the special effects were above par (i won’t spoil anything for you but the climax is super climatic). The action was pretty much nonstop, too, and let’s face it, that’s the only reason you go and see this kind of movie in the first place. So, definitely a wild ride.

The downside, ’cause there’s always a downside, was that towards the end they started taking more and more time to set up the action. i don’t need the action set up. i don’t give a rat’s ass why they gotta do something, i just wanna see them do it and as violently as possible, please. There were also some minor things, like the Ultimate Fighter who replaces Mister T has a real hard time speaking in a way that you can understand him, and when he finallly is clear enough you relaize he can’t act. i’m guessing the director told him, “Mumble—if people can’t understand you maybe they won’t realize you suck.”

Apart from torturing a glorified pro-wrestler by asking him to remember words, the rest of the acting was about what you’d expect. i’d like to highlight Sharlto Copley, though, who played Murdock and did a pretty good job—he spoke with different accents and everything. A mildly interesting bit of trivia: his girlfriend of a gajillion years, fellow South African Jeanne-Melanie Haasbroek, has a cameo as “Army Hospital Therapist Elke”. Unfortunately, i couldn’t find any shots of her online for the Silken Butterfly section down below.

All in all, The A-Team turns in their A-game and as long as you don’t expect a world class performance, you’ll walk away a winner.

Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)

Sex: 2 Shots

Another fumble The A-Team makes is trying to pass off the Charisa Sosa (Jessica Biel) / Lt. Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck (Bradley Cooper) romance. You want to inject a little estrogen into this testosterone? Perfect, i’m all for it, especially when the estrogen dose comes in a Jessica Biel (28) shaped container. But do we really need a romance between these two? No, we don’t. Here’s what we need:

The solo shots of her are down in my drawers. Just keep scrolling into you reach them.

Silken Butterflies

The beautiful Alex Madison, actress and, get this, stunt woman extraordinaire kicks off the movie with a blast as “General Tuco’s Wife”.

i’ve sent her a note to try to get an interview and i’ll keep you posted on how that turns out.

i sent another query to the very lovely Katie Boskovich, who plays “FOB French Reporter” and sucks Face’s face. While waiting for her answer, here’s a collage to hold you over.

Another Silken Butterfly flitting so sweetly across the silver screen was Anita Brown who was super well cast as “Attractive Prison Guard”.

Finally, coming in toward the end of the game, we get Natalie L. James as “Lynch Secretary”.

For those of you who prefer A-Teams to B-Cups, i got some Bradley Cooper (35) for y’all:

Drink: 2½ Shots

• Face drinks Bud from a can post-mission reminiscing about Merlot with JB
• Jameson (?) pre-mission @ campfire
• “I got a bottle of Blue Label waiting.” / “Bottle? make it a case.”
• CIA drinking beer & whiskey from fancy glasses in Stuttgart
• Flashback whiskey toast to good hunting (Peck & General)
• More Bud (bottle) placement on boat

Rock & Roll: 3½ Shots

The action was decent and there was a lot of it, especially in the first half when they kinda strung all the happening stuff together. Later on, like i said above, the A-Team got kinda worn out and dropped the ball by spending too much time in their playbooks.

On top of that, the music was pretty good over-all. Some nice rap, some nice guitar rework on the Mike Post and Pete Carpenter “A-Team Theme” and a pretty eclectic soundtrack overall. The only thing is, don’t be fooled by imitations. If you check out the OST on Amazon, you’ll see it’s just all that incidental instrumental background crap.

If you want the real lowdown down low, you came to the right place. Here’s the true music from the movie:

Boring Technical Crap

Written by:

Based on the television series “The A-Team” created by Frank Lupo and Skip Woods

Written by Joe Carnahan, Brian Bloom, Stephen J. Cannell

Directed by: Joe Carnahan

Starring

Jessica Biel – Charisa Sosa

Alex Madison – General Tuco’s Wife

Anita Brown – Attractive Prison Guard

Katie Boskovich – FOB French Reporter

Liam Neeson – Colonel John ‘Hannibal’ Smith

Bradley Cooper – Lt. Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck

Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson – B.A. Baracus

Sharlto Copley – Murdock

Patrick Wilson – Lynch

Jeanne-Melanie Haasbroek – Army Hospital Therapist Elke

Bottom Line

Give it a shot. The A-Team’s got game.

Al K Hall’s Drawers

Jessica Biel (28)